Another one of the bright lights from this year’s Columbia MFA thesis show is Aristotle Forrester. In the credit-where-credit-is-due department, I have to shout-out @onyedikachuke of Storage Art Gallery, who’s been singing Aristotle’s praises for some time now. I now fully see why.
I did a proper studio visit a few weeks ago, and it was great to get into the nitty gritty of painting and to understand the physicality that gives rise to his gestural abstraction. What he’s so good about is imbuing his work with a sense of movement that brings the paintings to life. He’s even gone so far as to create his own tools to better make larger pieces, all of which require him to use his whole body to paint because the tools are heavy, welded metal objects.
Some of his work will be in next month’s group show on abstraction at Latchkey Gallery. In the meantime, check out a few of his pieces, as well as his woodblock prints(!) in the photos above.
Also, in the short video below, Artistotle explains his approach to making the woodblock prints:
